and linkedin. thank you for watching. "deadline: white house" starts right now. aloha and namaste, everyone. it is 4:00 in new york city. i'm john heilemann in here for nicolle wallace all week long, i'm sorry to report. if president trump seems more irritable or cranky you would expect from a president coming off a week of summer vacation, which he apparently played a lot of golf and surfed a lot of cable news, look for a unique set of polls along with a crush ominous headlines that smacked him in the face when he first woke up this morning in the white house. a new national nbc news/"the wall street journal" poll puts trump 12 points behind. behind whom? a democrat to be named later. the generic democrat beating the sitting president by double digits. trump also failing the grade on on response to the mass shootings in dayton and el paso,

with a whopping 52% disapproving. for context that is a worst score george w. bush received for his hand hurricane katrina, which, of course, was a defining blunder of his presidency. those are bad numbers or poll-obsessed president is digesting today before he even had time to recover from last week's batch of harsh news delivered by the outlet that is normally his happy plarks that would be fox news. the head to head showing trump losing to all four democrats at the top of the democratic contest. we know it is eating at trump because this week he turned on the mepg. >> fox polls came, my worst polls have been from fox. there's something going on from fox and i'm not happy with it. i think fox is making a big mistake. i'm the one who calls the shots on the big debates. >> there's something going on at fox, he says, over a poll he doesn't like. that's one theory he's using to

explain away unpleasant realities and using the same mechanism to the other real news that poses the threat for his presidency and that is the economic downturn. he said, he insists his own handpicked federal chair jerome powell is acting against him and he accused the news media of trying to create a recession. all of that is what seems to be occupying the president's time and attention instead of the other option, which would be, you know, to actually try to come up with a plan to boost the economy or his polling. here to talk all of this true with us in washington, senior writer for politico, jake sherman and at the table associated press white house reporter jonathan lemire, nbc news correspondent carol lee and chief public affairs officer for moveon.org, jean-pierre -- karine jean, i don't know why i

do that every time i read it. >> just speak french. >> so, lemire, let me ask you this, if you take a snapshot of all of that news, polling news, economic news, what is the president, if you're president now looking at in a realistic way, your re-election prospects, what are you thinking? >> the number one argument they always made for re-election is the economy. they're saying he's a steward of a good economy. let's be clear. a great economy for every american. he also inherited a very good economy from president obama, his predecessor. putting it out there, economies seem to do well and for this president it is to this day. but there are signs of a slowdown and that is more than poll numbers, which is the white house does early or perhaps they're on fox and we can dismiss them somehow u. if the economy was to slow down and there would be a recession, and we don't know there is going to be a recession, but by analysts there could be one next summer,

which would be poorly timed for a president seeking re-election, that does a couple of things. it takes away the cover some of the republicans and independents have had that don't like a lot about this president, don't like the racist rhetoric but they say to themselves that's a compromise i will make because the economy is good. he's good for my small business and bottom line and bank account. if that goes away, then he's in real trouble and those polls will make it worse, particularly in the battleground states he needs to win. karine jean-pierre -- >> you got it. >> karine joean-pierre. i heard you chuckle or snort, one of the other as we look at the polling that has trump behind double digits against a generic democrat. does that sound particularly ominous to you? >> it sounds ominous but then there's the reality and not forgetting what happened in 2016, kwhs right now polls don't really matter and also in 2016 polls don't matter, in particular approvalism.

what donald trump will do, we have see this playbook, whenever that person is real, he will drive up their negatives and it's going to be an ugly, ugly race. at the end of the day when you look at the 2020 election, it's going to come down to three states, michigan, wisconsin and pennsylvania. which right now has three democratic governors. and which right now donald trump is underwater. i think there's more to it than just the polls. it's like what is the strategy? how is he doing? how does he get to 270? and what does it look like in those states that -- that blue wall he actually won? >> if you are president trump and you had this argument, i got this very solid base. you have this very narrow path through 270. those economic numbers have to be the things if you're looking at the narrow path and states in which you have to pull the inside strike to pull 2016, you have to be nervous because those

states particularly that he's got to get are the ones that will be hit first. >> absolutely and we know he is nervous about it, despite what he says and the response is the typical trump response to anything not going his way, which is to look around and find somebody to blame other than himself. you seen him start to build a case for if the economy does go down on his watch, why that is. he's blaming us, the media. he's creating this whole sense -- it's like when he was -- the idea of during the 2017 campaign, the election would be rigged, somehow this is a rigged game in his mind too. so he's planting a seed it's not his fault. he's blaming the federal reserve chairman, who blamed the president's policies on the reason why he had to change the interest rates, saying there was uncertainty over his trade war. so he has self-inflicted wounds in terms of starting this trade war and then looking around to blame someone and one of the

questions that i think all of us are covering is what happens now with the trade war, standoff with china? we know the president has had people in his camp who don't want him to get a deal because they think if he gets a deal, he goes into a campaign with something that can be picked apart by democrats and criticized and inevitably won't be a perfect deal and it's bet are for him to have the issue. now when you factor in economic uncertainty, that scrambled the dynamic there too and maybe he will be more likely to try to cut some sort of quick deal with china. >> i want to come back with the questions of the real economy and way the president perceives them in a second. lemire has some reporting on this. but i want to first ask jake, jake, you think about the people the president's blaming, one of the set of people he's blaming are the people at fox news. how bad does things have to be if donald trump turned on his most favorite television network in the world? >> pretty bad but i this is just want to go back to something you just said before and something carol touched on, which is

blaming the fed chair. i would venture to say most americans would not, if the economy does slow down, would accept the argument it's jay powell and you should have done quantitative easing. these are not good campaign slogans to jump on. i don't understand how he's going to make a buoy and battering ram out of the federal reserve chairman. it seems like a weak argument. number two, the president in those states was elected on the idea he would overcome all of the obstacles in his way because he was uniquely suited to be president because cobrehe couldk all of this gridlock and he has these super-human powers to negotiate and do these things. when people look at the choice in front of him, whatever it is, donald trump and himself, does he still believe he has these powers and these abilities to

kind of do things that were otherwise thought undoable for a politician in a gridlock system in washington? i think that is one of the central questions. >> we're going to read a little bit of the lemire reporting here, from the prose, poetry that comes out of jonathan lemire. here it is. privately trump is growing increasingly worried the economy won't look so good come election day. a downturn pwould be a blow to the president, and economic advisers see few options to reverse the course should the economy start to slip. it's a crazy thing. i'm older than you and i have been doing this for a while. i have rarely ever heard a white house acknowledge on background, on the record or off the record we have no options. our hands are tied. blaming the fed chair, blaming federal reserve chair is an old game upsetting presidents but acknowledging explicitly or

casually we are helpless in some way. we don't have a plan. we don't have any options. never heard that one before. >> it was sort of striking but that's how they feel. they will argue the economy is doing better than we are giving credit. they say things are going to be fine. right now this is a creation largely of cable news studios and some jitters on wall street, et cetera. they feel at some point they're going to get a good deal from china and he will be okay. privately, there are some concerns. i know this is a president who wedded himself to the fortunes of the stock market in an unprecedented way. presidents don't do this because it's risky. stock markets go up and down. this president does not like to see it ever go down and will not take responsibility for this. even though americans will see this and say you're taking credit so you have to take blame too. they feel like there's not going to be any real stimulus spending here. there's not going to be an infrastructure plan. the infrastructure week has become literally a punchline. they already have an interest reserve rate cut.

what's out there is whether or not they can make some sort of trade deal happen. but there is right now a concern. they feel like consumer spending will pick back up and that will be enough but right now they know that if the economy falters and spespecially slows down, th could mean the end in november. >> so these tweets relate to trump and the fed and strike a question. our economy is very strong, despite the horrendous lack of vision by jay powell and the fed. very selfish, our dollar is so strong but it is sadly hurting other parts of the world. then you have the next tweet, a federate over a fairly short period of time should be reduced by 100 base apoints then goes o to talk about quantitative ratings which nobody understands. if the economy is doing great, why drop interest rates?

if the economy is great, you would not have to essentially order the fed chair? >> the first thing i find shocking about those tweets, and i used to work for "the wall street journal" -- >> kwaquantitative markets were your thing. >> you don't talk about that or the stock market. it was all carefully handled. now it's just all out there. so it continues to be surprising even though it's become commonplace. but you're right, president trump has always been -- everything is just how he says it. it's not trying to make one thing make sense with another thing and right hand talk to the left hand isn't necessarily how he operates. so that's what you're going to get from him. but you're correct, it doesn't add up. i want to come back to the fox news point, because i do find it stunning. i'm sitting there watching this 30-minute rambling gab fest yesterday and just to hear the president -- not just kind of criticizing fox news, because he's done that a few times but before sort of threatening fox

news, that's not a thing -- of the many things we don't hear from presidents very often but we haven't heard trump go quite that far in bashing fox news and suggesting maybe there should be consequences in some way. >> i think because he woke up this morning to a lot of bad news. you have the matchup polling, the approval numbers and you have the economists who are saying we may be headed towards a recession. and the thing about it, john, all of his own doing, this is all sitting at his feet and he refuses to do -- like you said in your intro, he can change all of this by just doing his job as president. if you think about the economy, if he doesn't do something, if the economists are right and we're headed to a recession, there are consequences to that, to the very people who elected him. we talk about michigan and pennsylvania and wisconsin, these are the folks who elected him who will be hurt by this and lose their homes and head into a really economic downturn. but he causes this type of

really just chaos. and he creates conspiracy theories and that's how he deals with it but doesn't do the work. even when you think about the wake of el paso and dayton, ohio, he did not unify. he did not console. he divided. so all of this is his doing. >> so i want to play because of what you were saying makes me think of a piece of sound we have here from elizabeth warren talking about this. i think one of the big questions going forward is obviously the economic slump is bad for trump but it also complicates things in various ways for democrats having to deal with this on the campaign trail. let's listen to what warren had to say. >> i think the economy is in a very risky place right now. every day that goes by, donald trump makes it worse. he makes it worse with his unpredictability. he makes it worse with his trade war by tweet, and he makes it worse when he attacks the federal reserve and tries to push them into a more political position.

>> so, jake, you heard that and you could hear the democrats obviously there's a certain amount of -- they see the political opportunity and they understand the fact that trump's only chance is premised on the notion that the economy is strong, has been strong and will continue to be strong. but it's not 100% a slam dunk for democrats, and especially for democrats who are looking at a field that ranges from economic revolutionaries on one side to much more mainstream moderate democrats in the middle. >> yeah, that's true. i think republican polling that we have seen that we published throughout the last couple of weeks does have a mixed message for democrats and, frankly, democratic polling too on all of these topics. i think what republicans have been surprised by is that they're trying to paint the democratic party socialists but the individual platforms, individual policies that democrats are running on are actually quite popular and that's according to republican polling and republicans keep telling me we have a lot of work to do to kind of tarnish those

proposals. things like the green new deal and medicare for all. it's an interesting dynamic going into an election that a lot of these revolutionary ideas, so revolutionary ideas, are so quite popular on their face inne i ask you this because you've got the sanders/warren economic plans, which are very -- whether you like them or don't like them, they're very clear. there's structural reform. as jake just said, they're surprisingly popular with a lot of mainstream voters. but then you've got people who are like the front-runner on the democratic side, joe biden, who i couldn't tell you right now with joe biden's economic plan is for america and some of the more moderate candidates like mayor pete, where they carved out a perception of what their personality is. but in terms of policy proposals, not nearly as clear as -- easily identifiable as what the left is saying. how does that play out among democrats? >> that's interesting, looking at elizabeth warren for an

example she's rising in the polls. a lot of the things that are helping her rise in the polls are the plans. one plan that i think does extremely well is the wealth tax. it's popular with independents, republicans and democrats and it is because very clear, it cuts through the chase as to what she's going to be doing to help everyday people, to help everyone else except -- and not focus on what 1% we hear the two of them, she and bernie, talk about all the time. elizabeth warren talked about something in that clip that's really important and democrats are going to have to talk about the trump taxes, right. they have to talk about the trade war that trump is doing. those are the things that are hurting everyday people. you think about the economy, when you think about the people who elected donald trump, that's what you lean into. because it's very real for them. those two things are incredibly unpopular and they hurt donald trump. you just have to keep talking about it and hammer that message down and make sure it comes through. >> we will talk a little about

elizabeth warren in a second. everyone is staying put. you guys are invaluable. when we come back, news from the campaign trail, more from elizabeth warren as i said confronting the lingering controversy over her ancestry by offering a very public apology to native americans today. also ahead more on the breaking news we have been following all day, reaction to the firing of a new york city police officer involved in the choking death of eric garner. garner's mother about to speak publicly. and last longer with fewer pills. so why am i still thinking about this? i'll take aleve. aleve. proven better on pain. with moderate to severe ulcerative colitis or crohn's, your plans can change in minutes. your head wants to do one thing, but your gut says, "not today." if your current treatment isn't working, ask your doctor about entyvio. entyvio acts specifically in the gi tract to prevent an excess

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now before i go any further in this, i want to say this, like anyone who's being honest with themselves, i know that i

have made mistakes. i am sorry for harm i have caused. i have listened and i have learned a lot. and i'm grateful for the many conversations that we've had together. it is a great honor to be able to partner with indian country, and that's what i have tried to do as a senator, and that's what i promise i will do as president of the united states. of america. >> that was elizabeth warren attempting to seize control and end the controversy over a narrative that dogged her campaign, deservedly or otherwise. she started her forum with an apology. you may remember her past comments have been the subject of ridicule, especially from donald trump, who refers to the senator as pocahontas. even trump is questioning if he

went there too soon. >> well, it's like elizabeth warren. i did the pocahontas thing. i hit her really hard. and it looked like she was down and out. but that was too long ago. i should have waited. but don't worry, we will revive it. it can be -- it will be revived. and it can be revived very easily. and very quickly. >> jake and the table are back. karine just starting with you here picking up. let's start with warren herself and what you decided to do today. we all remember back in the mid-october election season back in 2016 she tried this gambit with a dna test that did not go well. she was widely criticized by other democrats as being a distraction in the midterms,

whole methodology seems like a stunt. she got hammered, again, from friendly fire. a lot of democrats unhappy. then she kind of let it sit for a while and now she's come back with this very declarative statement doing something donald trump never does, something joe biden almost never does, apologize if a full-throated, straightforward way. do you think this works for her? is it over now? >> i was thinking the same thing, good to see someone in leadership actually apologize. it's wonderful to hear. lo kudos for her. she had a misstep. that is the kind way of saying it. it was a mistake. she listened to the clip, she learned, she listened to indigenous people and took an introspective look and figured out, okay, this is what i did wrong and i think she's trying to move forward in the right way this time around. i think it will be beneficial. i think it will help her. the other thing too i want to say about her, she's probably one of the only political figures out there that's been

battletested and won the test thus far by donald trump. pocahontas is a racial slur donald trump as we know used over and over and over again. look at her now. she's rising in the polls because of her plan because she's running an incredibly start campaign. that is something nobody else has, she's so far, so far has survived one of the awful nicknames by donald trump. >> to piggy back on that, that caught the white house's attention, trump's bluster aside, people around there are impressed. she took a punch and got back up and kept going. the fact you can have a comeback story, that's often very important during these campaigns. they recognize this is somebody that perhaps is more formidable than they first thought. they are seeing her poll numbers. they know the organization is pretty good. there are plenty preparing for biden as the eventual nominee but they are now much more willing to consider the possibility the general election may be against elizabeth warren. >> you can see it in the president's remarks. there was almost sort of a

grudging respect there. we'll have to go back at it again, i guess, and try this. it's not over. he made clear he's not finished with this line of attack but also it didn't work. >> i want to add -- i will come back to trump in a second and ask where he goes from here but sticking with warren for one more second with jake, "the new york times" points out in addition to this apology, she also has a plan which elizabeth warren's trademark. she's got a plan for that and in this case we have a quote from "the times" she talks about friday miss warren rolled out a set of proposals intended to help native americans talk about topics live sovereignty and indigenous women. and she covered areas like health care and education and criminal justice. so there's no doubt elizabeth warren isp or the rise. there's no doubt the story in some ways the first eight months of this race, she's been the one

candidate who has had consistent upward trajectory since the race started. you've seen bernie sanders on the downslide throughout or joe biden kind of teetering, losing support but really warren has been the story of a candidate with focused energy, strength, good campaign organizations in places like iowa, new hampshire. is this combination the 1-2 punch of a declarative apology at this point and her kind of trademark policy proposals on it, is this the thing that allows her to put this question behind her? this is a long question but i ask one last thing about it, which is this controversy is never really about native american ancestry. this controversy has been about eabout elizabeth warren's authenticity. was she lying before this thing to get advantages that were meant to be given to people of color, nonwhite, people of minority? has she moved past all of that? again donald trump aside in the democratic race or is this

something that coulding in at her as she gets further and further elevation? >> she might have moved past it in the primary but if there was a controversy more taylormade for donald trump, i don't know what it would be. this gets to the heart of anything donald trump has said about politicians and washington, that they're phonies, they create and lie to get advantages and gain the system that has turned against the everyman and being manipulated by dishonest people. that's what the president is -- presumably that's what he said already and that's what he's going to continue to say about elizabeth warren. i think in a general election to be honest with you, and this could be just me being naive or perhaps a bit jaded, i think in a general election people gloss over some of these policy proposals. i know i'm going to get hit for saying that but they do. donald trump speaks in plane english, in plain terms and i think he has an advantage in that sense. i think in a general election perhaps that's an advantage for donald trump and combine that

with this argument about authenticity with elizabeth warren. i just don't know. i'm just laying out some of dynamics here. again, one other thing nobody is talking about, no democratic candidate is talking about, how they are going to get these plans through. they're talking about very ambitious piece of legislation that basically stand no chance in the reality we live in washington. so those two things i'm keeping an eye on. >> before we come back, we know to win the nomination you have to get a lot of nonwhite votes. you have to do well with african-american numbers and hispanic numbers. one of the questions about warren was, this question i just raised with jake, this authenticity question, would nonwhite voters be an issue, if she was claiming to have native american ancestry, if she used that to get affirmative action in her career, would that be a problem as she tried to make

inroads with other nonwhite voters? other than joe biden, we know there's no one with a big chunk of the african-american vote. i ask you in the democratic lane, is she handling this well or does she still have a challenge here that dog her just to get the nomination before she has to go deal with donald trump? >> i think in the primary jake is absolutely right. there was the authenticity question, absolutely. i think if you are not authentic about who you are and what you present yourself to be, people don't think that's real, then, yeah, you will have problems with that nonminority vote in particular -- i'm sorry, that minority vote that you're talking about. but i actually think outside of the dna tests, elizabeth warren has been doing a really good job. she was one of the first and only really i could argue of white candidates out there who was talking about her plan in putting a racial lens and putting that multi culture feel through all of her plans. the i think that matters.

people see that in the black community and people are really connecting to that with her when they see her out there, when she's going everywhere. even in red states, she's going to different communities and she talks about her plan and unapologetic about it. it's not just about one community, it's about all of the communities. i think she was already there before this but i think this will help her having a comprehensive plan around indigenous people and having the event that she's having today. >> jake, i know you have to go and i want to come back with one last question and if i have time hit la lear on this. i want to get back to trump. there was a dave weigel piece i thought was interesting the other day on pocahontas. he writes after absorbing three years of insults from the president, warren settled into a new position. we're not being asked about the i sult because it's not making news. the last month president trump

implied it three times and that had media outlets scrambling for outlets from are warren but most simply, they're not making news. he likes to just throw out insults that cause reporters to scramble and go and put the cade he's attacking in uncomfortable positions. is there a chance trump looks at this and he said in the clip we played, we have to revive it, that he be just looks at the way the coverage is, wooirking and says this is not working anymore for me and has to find another way to attack war into get something against her? >> yes, this brought up something a republican brought up to me the other day, doing too many rallies and saying too much works against the frez president's favor and becomes white noise in the background of a loud campaign. i think the president will focus on authenticity. if she's presenting herself, as

you guys said at the table, if she presenting herself in one way that's not reality, what else is she saying that is untrue? you see it pivot to can you trust this person? and with other lines of aing that, you can envision how this would play out on a broader level. he never has just one insult or one criticism against a politician. he finds a litany of them. >> very quickly, lemire, will we hear more pocahontas from donald trump? or will he move on to something new? >> the answer is yes and yes. i agree with jake and i also think if warren isn't there, it's more buy binary boyce, warren will get asked about it. can't get away from that. and secondly trump feels like this attack could appeal to his base because they're upset about someone trying to get the handout and unfair advantage. same thing they feel about immigrants getting health care and things like that. >> jake sherman, thank you so

much for spending time with us. still ahead, the avengers single brought to you by the mooch, anthony scaramucci, as the insiders get ready to battle the boss. quietly running the world. creating jobs and fueling the economy. you're small business owners, and there's nothing small about your business. that's why with dell small business technology advisors. you'll get tailored product solutions, expert tech advice and one-on-one partnership. to help your small business do big things. ♪ call an advisor today at 877-buy-dell ♪

repair the enamel on a daily basis. with the new pronamel repair toothpaste more minerals enter deep into the enamel surface. you have an opportunity to repair what's already been damaged. it 's amazing. he borrowed billions donald trump failed as amaged. businessman. and left a trail of bankruptcy and broken promises. he hasn't changed. i started a tiny investment business, and over 27 years, grew it successfully to 36 billion dollars. i'm tom steyer and i approve this message. i'm running for president because unlike other candidates, i can go head to head with donald trump on the economy, and expose him fo what he is: a fraud and a failure.

i'm in the process of putting together a team of people who feel the exact same way that i do. this is not a never-trump situation. this is not just screeching rhetoric. this is okay, the guy is unstable. everyone inside knows it. everyone outside knows it. let's see if we can find a viable alternative. moreover, i've got to get some of these former cabinet officials in unity to speak up about it. they know it's a crisis. >> never fear, the mooch is here. the man who spent 11 days as donald trump's communications director assembling an elite coalition of former trumpers in an attempt to send a unified

message the president is unfit to lead. scaramucci didn't name anyone on that team but insisted there's former cabinet officials, a trove of people, who would welcome a republican alternative. donald trump, who famously never, never, never watches cable news tweeted, quote, anthony scaramucci is a highly unstable nut job who was with other candidates in the primary who got shellacked and needled his way into my campaign. i barely knew him. wrote a nice book about me recently. now the book is a lie? his wife was driving him crazy, something big was happening with her, he was getting divorced, a mental wreck. now he's on fake news that i was his buddy. joining the conversation, editor in large for the news website the bulwark and msnbc dedicated analyst that would be bill

kristol. bill, tell me, if you stripped away all of the personalities involved and the mooch and trump's reaction to it, the notion there are a bunch of trump officials who think the president is unstable would not surprise you, correct? so, therefore, do we take this seriously that scaramucci might do something with that, the trigger to get these people out or is he using his notoriety, what little there, to get on cable news? >> he did work for trump for 11 days and trump trusted him enough to try to bring him in as communications secretary or whatever it was. he's on the record saying trump shouldn't be re-elected, nominated, he's unstable and to say he's had discussions with other foreign cabinet secretaries. we've all had discussions with people in private that they don't want to say in public. the question is what if two, three serious people came out in a few months and said look, i'm

not going to reveal private conversations with the president. i don't do that thing. i will not endorse anyone against the man i work for. i will give you my measured judgment of whatever he's accomplished, whatever the complications in the first term, he shouldn't have a second term. that would be striking if people who worked in senior positions, maybe gary cohn or jim mattis, not saying anyone told me they would do this, that type of person says something like that. i think scaramucci's on to something and that's different for people like me who had never been okay with trump, i took my shot, i did the best, i think he's done good things but no second term. >> here's the analysis again citing maggie haberman. the number of people who supported trump in 2016 when he faces multiple allegations of sexual misconduct and the judge questioned a number of things and said any number of controversial things whose campaign was played by a leak,

in order to say they would break with him is something. point being it's hard to see what the change is they're referring to that precipitated the break that now is a problem but wasn't back then. that analysis seems like a did question. >> can i say something? he's been president three years. it's not so crazy to think november 9, whatever the day was, 2016, maybe he will change. maybe these things we thought were disqualifying shouldn't have been and maybe you have him in for four years. now you see the people in the last year leaving and people coming in and the last month or two him getting more erratic and not less. the opposite of growing into the presidency. there's something to the notion, it's a little different. i'm not overstating it but a little different people who wok eight to trup but now they have to think we've seen this in office. can we live with this for an

additional term? >> do you think, lemire and the white house, that it's changed? do people -- from your reporting, bill's making a point trump is a monster and not only did he become less of a monster, he became more of a monster. he was unstable and now he's more unstable with people he left a mark on that maybe they were drifters and had hope if i came in and helped him, he would grow in the job. is that the perception that's the case or basically these people were drifters who wanted the power, wanted the access, wanted what it did for them and rode in with trump and now they're just making noise to make noise? >> i think donald trump is still the donald trump he always has been. he has shed some, no doubt, that couldn't work for him anymore. he had racism and particularly egregious and bothered people, the attack on the kingwomen of

col congresswoman and congressman of baltimore and cities with large populations is unsettling to some but it's not as if we haven't heard things similar in the past. it's not clear why there would suddenly be more of a split now in which scaramucci goes, to be fair, it was more than just 11 days. he kpwas a campaign surrogate. he was in the white house almost from the beginning. right now if it's skaf mucci and omarosa, i don't think that will have much of an impact. >> one of the things we have seen from politico is tomba rack, very personal friend of trump, ran his inaugural committee and now they seemed to have had a falling out. curious what you know about that and whether there are potentially others like him who would be in bis crohris toll's mind, the kind of people whose

serious people and public renunciation of trump could make a difference. >> that's the question. anthony scaramucci seems like he took his public shot at trump. it seems to be potentially waning in terms of getting attention. so now he's come out with a second promise and in a very trumpian way, 18, you know, it wasn't like a bunch of people, very specific number like he has the dids to deliver. the question is who is going to do that? i cover this administration, hr mcmaster, james mattis, rex tillerson. these are not people who seem like they have done anything to suggest they will go over to anthony scaramucci's side and get under and join his quest. if anything if they had something to say, they would deliver it on their own. will they deliver? tom's split seems to be different. it's a personal split between the two of him. i don't know him coming out with resonate with the average voter.

the other thing shadowing all of this is everyone heard all of this before. if you're a voter in ohio or pennsylvania or wisconsin, you know all of this about the president and the president's response will be exactly the same. these people have an ax to grind. they're just mad that i fired them, that they're gone now and they have a grudge and we're back in the same eichel we have been in. >> remember the anonymous "the new york times" op-ed? more of the same. these things don't have much of an impact on him. >> there's one other name floating around now and that's mike pompeo. there's a piece in "new yorker" i want to read from here. the piece is called the secretary of trump. as former senior white house official said, there will never be any daylight publicly between him and trump. this is sousan glasser. the former official said that in private to pompeo's quote the most sick owe fan tick people around trump, even a former diplomat ambassador told me he's like a heat-seeking missile for trump's ass. yet we know there have been

various reports about mike pompeo having been very skeptical of trump back when he was running for president. so, kristol, i throw it back to you. what do you think about the heat missile or maybe that be too is not as depegenuine as donald tr thinks he is. >> i don't know, i can't read his mind but i think he thinks he's doing good. but let me go back and say if r. kelly, hr mcmaster, mattis said something as part of anthony scaramucci's team on not his own if donald trump should be elected to the president of the united states. i think that would give them a little weight. he is who he is but he's only president for three years. the election is a judgment not just if you're satisfied what he has been doing and whether

you're confident they can keep on doing this. so i think there's something to the notion the people who know him, even if they're not at the stature of jim mattis at this point having seconds thoughts is a real thing. it's not clear to me why anthony scaramucci -- i have had my arguments with him. he's not a choice friend of mine but i think he sincerely believes donald trump shouldn't be president for four more years. i think some of that is he's been slighted and he's been watching the last year and thinking okay, it's getting worse, not better. >> thank you, bill. i will say it's an amazing trend we have here, an incredible number of people critics and sketched ginls donald trump in the past who sucked up to get him in power and for who whatever reason had a falling out with trump, i think voters hear that and these people are in fact totally political drifters and should not be listened to. that's why i have skepticism about whether any of them will matter.

we will see what happens and whether it has an impact, as i said. thank you for spending time with us. up next, eric garner's death sparking a nationwide outcry galvanizing the black live matters movement. today the police officer involved in his death was fired. his family's reaction coming up. we have to be able to repair the enamel on a daily basis. with the new pronamel repair toothpaste we can help actively repair enamel in its weakened state. it's innovative. my go-to toothpaste is going to be pronamel repair.

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and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection. ask your doctor about humira citrate-free. here's to you. in this case, the unintended consequence of mr. garner's death must have a consequence of its own. therefore, i agree with the deputy of commissioner's trial findings and recommendations, it is clear that daniel pantaleo can no longer effectively serve as a new york city police officer. there are absolutely no victors here today. not the garner family, not the community at large, and certainly not the courageous men and women of the police department who put their own lives on the line every single day in service to the people of this great city. >> that was commissioner

o'neill, in police custody in 2014 has been fired from the nypd. who sparked a nationwide outcry over police brutality. eric garner's last words "i can't breathe" now a rallying cry for the black lives matter movement. and just this afternoon garner's daughter responded. >> commissioner o'neill, i thank you for doing the right thing. i truly and sincerely thank you for firing the officer. regardless of however you came to your decision, you finally made a decision that should've been made five years ago. we will be going for the congressional hearings. we will be trying to reopen the case. we will be going after the rest of the officers involved because it's not over. justice for new york city means pantaleo is fired and there's no murdering cop on the police force. >> joining the table reverend al sharpton, president of the national action network and host of "politicsnation" here on msnbc.

we are waiting to hear from garner's mother, rev. this is obviously been five years and we've been waiting and the question i think for a lot of people, there are a million questions, but the biggest one is this is the end of the story or is this not the end of the story? >> no. it's not the end of the story. his daughter and son said that the press conference this morning. there is a commitment made to the mother by congressman jerry nadler that he's going to do judicial hearings on why and what happened in terms of the federal investigation. and there is the request since we have a new da in staten island to reopen the state case. you must remember that police said that eric garner had 10,000 cigarettes. that ended up not being true. there were statements made that were patently untrue. if those statements were made to a grand jury, that's perjury.

but even as important as all of that is this was a police policy no chokeholds, cannot use chokeholds and the commissioner cited that today. we want to see that made federal and/or state law, not going from one commissioner's tenure to another's. it ought to be against the law. and i think that when the commissioner said that if he was a cop he'd be mad at him for making the decision. if he was a cop, he ought to be glad that the police say we're going to enforce the guidelines that you were trained on. don't forget pantaleo was trained against chokeholds. he decided whether it was during the action or before it really doesn't matter that he was going to do what he knew was against police policy. so are we saying now that police are above the law? don't worry about policy, don't worry about training. if you get angry, you can choke somebody to death. i think that that is what this

decision today said, no, you can't do that, and police cannot enforce laws if they are not going to follow laws. >> same question to you. as we come to this, if it's not the end, where do things go and what do you think at this point at this moment whether it's -- and it's going to bring a certain kind of closure if not a total one. what are the big lessons that we should take away from the course of how this has all been, not just the controversy itself but how the controversy's been handled, the fact that it's taken five years and many people see this as too little too late. just try to take this up to 30,000 feet and tell us how to think about this. >> well, 30,000 feet i absolutely agree with the reverend that, number one, the commissioner did the right thing in accepting the recommendation from his administrative law judge. he did not have to, and we have to remember he could have rejected that recommendation. the decision was his. by the same token the decision would have been his to act

without that decision as long as there had been an internal investigation and due process for officer pantaleo. the so the question here becomes at the 30,000 foot level how and when is there justice in law if someone loses their life at the hands of an officer who was violating clear policy and training because as we keep hearing in the discussion, it is very difficult to bring a criminal prosecution even in a case where you have a man who, number one, under the discretion of the officer did not have to be arrested. you know, all this talk about how somehow eric garner caused his own death, lots of questions in the trial about how did the officers have probable cause for him selling loose cigarettes at over 300 feet from where eric garner was standing? so even the premise of the arrest should be under question. and that's something we are not talking about. it's unsafe to be a police

officer in too many instances. and in too many instances it's unsafe to be black. >> reverend, the mayor of new york city and also a presidential candidate if an underdog candidate, bill de blasio didn't really take a stand whether or not this police officer should've lost his job or not. >> i think that by city charter he could not interview. >> but you can voice your opinion. >> my opinion is that had he interfered, they would then be able to say this was all politics what, they're saying anyway. would i have liked to see this dealt with five years ago? yes, i would have. but would i have liked to seen this jeopardize? if the mayor come in, which i wish someone had moved immediately, they would have said it was political, appealed it and we would have lost the termination fight. so in the immediacy of it i wish he had moved. in the legal restraints, i think that it protected this decision that was made today.

but this decision should've been made by a jury in a courtroom. when we started this whole movement with eric garner and then on to michael brown and ferguson, was for the law to work, not administration jobs. >> reverend, i'm going to cut you off real quick because we're going to hear eric garner's mother. >> pantaleo, you, your regime, you can appeal all you want. but i am still out here. i am out here for the long run. you call out here against me. i'm out here. and cannot scare me away. pantaleo, you may have lost your job, but i lost a son. >> that's right! >> july 17th, 2014, i lost my son. cannot replace that. you can get another job maybe at burger king. okay? >> so that's eric garner's

mother obviously upset and talking about the possibility of appeal. we've seen the police officer's union come out and is unhappy today with this ruling. we're talking about where this goes from here. is the fact that there is not just larger policy issues here, but this issue seems just with the way the officer's union is standing and resisting, denouncing this outcome. see, it does not seem like there's going to be a kind of consensus around this in terms of this resolution. >> well, no. and, look, we were never going to get consensus, unfortunately with at least the senior leadership of the police benevolent association. the rank in file remember and some of them turned their back on mayor de blasio because he said it could've been his son. and that's the conversation we have to be able to have honestly. one thing i will say, having worked in city hall and having gotten to know many rank and file police officers is many of

them want to have that conversation. we shouldn't confuse the pba spokespeople with necessarily every rank and file police officer. the there are a lot of good police officers out there who actually care about creating better relationships. >> we are going to have to leave it there. thank you all for coming in. this conversation could go on. that does it for this hour. "mtp daily" with steve kornacki who is in for chuck todd is starting right now. ♪ if it's monday, it's the economy. at least that's what the president hopes because pretty much everything else in our new poll spells trouble for trump. plus, gun shy. the president appears to be backing down on background checks despite overwhelming support for it in our n